rescue911fandomcom-20200213-history
Locomotive Cop Hero
Location: Waxhaw, North Carolina Date: September 8, 1994 Story On the night of September 8, 1994, in Waxhaw, North Carolina, Jan Emore was on her way home from work with her 3-year-old son, Vance. As she was approaching a railroad crossing, her car began to make noises, and it stalled right on the tracks. Approaching the crossing from the other side were Jeanette Smith and her daughter, who were unsure why the car was stopped on the tracks before they realized it had stalled. Behind Jan was a Waxhaw police officer in a patrol car, and before long she got out of the car and went to him. Jeanette realized he was Lance Land, whom she personally knew as he had helped with her wedding. Lance asked Jan what had happened to the car and Jan explained that it had begun squirting oil and then stalled as it was crossing the tracks. The situation suddenly became much more urgent, because as Jan was explaining this to Lance, the signals were activated. Unbeknownst to Jan, a freight train was rounding a curve about two hundred yards away as her car stalled. But from the direction it had been heading that night, it couldn't be seen until it was very near the crossing. After the signals were activated, Lance immediately ran to the car and attempted to lift it up from the back. He was unsuccessful at that and Jan ran back into it to try to undo Vance's car seat. Jeanette was thinking it was best not to worry about the car but to just get Jan and Vance out of it. Lance told her to get out since the train was coming, but she told him she needed to undo Vance's car seat before either of them could get out. Jeanette's daughter told her that there was a toddler in the car and they were trying to get his car seat undone. Jeanette could not stand the thought of Jan and Vance being in the car as the train struck it, since they would likely either be killed or seriously injured. As the engineer frantically sounded the train whistle, Lance was desperately trying to lift the car and Jan was equally desperately trying to undo Vance's car seat as he shouted, "The train's going to smash us!" Jan frantically told him that it wasn't, even though it was speeding toward them very quickly. As the train went by, Jeanette didn't know if Jan and Vance were alive or dead, and just prayed until the train was gone. When it had cleared and they saw Lance, Jan, and Vance standing there, it seemed like a miracle to her, and her daughter said she had just seen one for the first time. When Jan finally got Vance's car seat undone, she stood in the doorway of the car trying to protect him from the impact of the train hitting the car, but that never came and she did not understand why at first. Lance remembered thinking that she and Vance were fixing to die. As the train sped toward them, he reached back down and picked up the front of the car with all of his strength. He lifted it up and then dropped it, at the point where he felt the train brush against his back. He remembered Vance looking up at him and saying, "You're my policeman." They exchanged hugs and tears at that point. In the two months since the accident, Jan realized every day when she woke up that she and/or Vance could have died if the train had hit them, and it made her think differently about everything and realize she had been given a second chance at life. Lance became friends with the Emore family, and Jan acknowledged that she and Vance might not be alive if it weren't for him. She also acknowledged how no police code says to get on tracks with a speeding train coming at you to save others, and called him a hero for that reason. Lance said there was a feeling he got realizing that ordinary people have the power to change someone else's life if they take the initiative to do so. The situation Jan was in didn't stop her from realizing the importance of car seats for young children, but it told her that when picking one out you needs to consider not only its resistance to impact, but also how easy it is to undo it in case of an emergency. Jeanette was proud of Lance for doing what he did and living to tell about it, since she doubted that he could get the car off in time, but he did and saved two lives. Jan always wanted to instill in Vance that police officers were cool, but he already thought that about Lance, admiring him nearly as much as he did his father. Category:1994 Category:North Carolina Category:Railroad Accidents